


the hour vanishing

by romancandles



Category: Social Network (2010) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-06
Updated: 2012-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-29 01:46:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romancandles/pseuds/romancandles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>andrew wants it all at once and then he wants more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the hour vanishing

**Author's Note:**

> i'd apologize to andrew and jesse for writing rpf about them but they starred in a movie that was essentially rpf so if you got here by googling yourself, you narcissist, then don't be a hypocrite. (originally published on lj november 2010)

They’re running lines in Jesse’s room, Jesse sprawled on his stomach across the hideous brown paisley coverlet, chin propped up in one hand, watching Andrew pace the room. He’s a little light-headed and lazy, a half dozen beers and the better part of a Domino’s pizza — ubiquitous and ubiquitously mediocre — polished off between them. His eyelids feel heavy and the room seems hazy, the lamps blurring into halos reflecting off Andrew’s hair, now sticking up in all directions in haphazard peaks.

Andrew walks from the window to the door and back again, murmuring to himself. Jesse’s stomach is sore from laughing, even though he’s trying to school himself into something grave for the scene. They’re running the Palo Alto scenes, Andrew trying to get a handle on Eduardo and failing because he’s too skinny for three high-alcohol beers and it’s late and they can’t quite manage to finish —

Andrew slaps the pizza box down on the bedspread. “How about now — you still wired in?” His heart’s not really in it though, because his eyes are red-rimmed and his hands stay at his sides. Twenty minutes ago he did the same line gesticulating wildly, eyes wide like there were tears glimmering beneath the surface. He gets the numbers wrong.

“Twenty-four,” Jesse interrupts and Andrew makes a face but continues through the scene undaunted. He can never remember, jokes he went into acting to avoid numbers forever.

Andrew doesn’t learn lines the way Jesse does, quietly breaking them down to their separate parts before stringing them together so that when he first goes through he ends up with a cohesive scene. Andrew’s all energy and false starts, hilariously running with one reading of a scene before switching horses mid-steam, the quick transition between drama and humor like the crack of a whip.

When they go through Justin’s lines, Andrew drops a few — not by accident but as though he’s dismissive of Sean, like he can’t and won’t be distracted from Mark, and his voice goes soft when he whispers it’s like he’s not a part of Facebook. So far, so good, but Jesse’s back tenses up. The Phoenix is the lynchpin and if they could get through this one scene then maybe they could pass out.

“I knew it,” Andrew breathes and Jesse tries very hard to keep a straight face. “It was you — you leaked that story—” his mouth twitches, just barely, but it’s enough that Jesse can’t rein in his snort of laughter “—about the chicken.” His voice cracks on the last word and he sits on the edge of the bed suddenly like his legs can no longer hold him, sprawls back with one forearm over his eyes, his helpless laughter laughter warm and completely unself-conscious.

Jesse drops his head to press his smile into the comforter, but manages to say his own line with admirable gravity, which only makes Andrew laugh harder, turning his face one way and then the other, like he wants to cocoon himself into the comforter but doesn’t retain enough control of his body to do it.

“I’m going to be fired,” he says when they’ve caught their breath, his voice caught in a strange marriage between his normal voice and Eduardo's voice. “I need to say this line without laughing.”

“It’s really not that funny.”

“It really is,” insists Andrew and he’s right, it is; the whole script is like that, lines that look ridiculous on paper but work once Andrew slips into Eduardo’s skin. “I hope that when you screw me over for half a billion dollars and throw our friendship down the drain that the first thing out of my mouth is the time your cat threw up in Justin’s car and you told him it was me.” His smile is quiet and faraway, squinting at the ceiling as though the crown molding holds the secrets he’s looking for. “I feel like he’s grasping at straws.”

“You think he doesn’t believe it?” Jesse turns on his side and rests his cheek on his arm. The light catches on Andrew’s eyelashes, the low light playing up the hollows and angles of his face to make him look like a dramatic baroque painting.

“I think he regrets wasting one of the few times he had your undivided attention to talk about chickens because what he really wants to say I say later — ‘I was your only friend.’” A brief smile returns. “Maybe. I don’t know. Or maybe he really likes chickens.” Andrew scrubs his hand over his face, then lets his hands fall above his head. “I hate to go in unprepared, it’s like primary school all over again: _what do you think the answer is, Andrew_?” He mimics some high-pitched teacher from his youth.

Andrew keeps looking at Jesse, but his eyes are slightly unfocused, lips barely parted as he turns over the lines in his head. He’s not really seeing Jesse, but Mark, and it makes Jesse’s back tense, the thoughtless way Andrew slips between Jesse and Mark like the lines are blurring, mostly because he feels it too. It’s hard to forget take after take of the same lines, Andrew staring over at him looking betrayed, then avoiding him between takes because Jesse was by turns abrasive and outright rude. It’s easier to stay in character, pull himself into a corner and just be Mark for the duration than vacillate between them, even though Andrew shook Eduardo on and off like slipping out of a jacket, one minute taut and wide-eyed, the next leaning over to Rashida to tell her some story he’d told a dozen times already.

Now though, he’s on the other side, Andrew’s gaze raking over his face like he’s going to find the secrets to the lines hidden there. And maybe he will. Jesse reaches up, crawls his fingers along the bedspread to grab Andrew’s wrist. The skin is soft and thin, warm when he scrapes his thumb nail over the veins. Andrew’s fingers curl into his palm. When Jesse looks back at Andrew, his face has cleared, the pensive, shuttered expression replaced by Andrew’s half-shut eyes and tiny smile.

The room is quiet, just the rush of traffic whizzing down the freeway outside and the low hiss of the air conditioning so when Jesse shifts closer, the bed’s groan is unmistakable. Andrew laughs, just a breath, but it sounds like him, his accent betraying him — if a laugh can have an accent. Andrew cranes his neck to toward Jesse but the rest of him stays sunken into the comforter; he falls just short of the distance to Jesse’s mouth, managing to brush their noses together. Andrew closes his eyes like he’s going to fall asleep where he is, half lying on the bed with his knees hanging off over the edge, winds his hand to lace his fingers through Jesse’s above their heads. They breathe, the slow heaviness of alcohol and heavy food weighing them both down and Jesse relaxes his hand after a long moment.

Andrew moves then, rolls on to one side, shoulder knocking against Jesse’s until they’re kissing, stupid and easy. Andrew kisses like a kid in a candy store, all reckless enthusiasm that fades into drunken languor once the high initial high begins to fade. Jesse curls his free hand into the knobs of Andrew’s neck, fingertips settling into the valleys of his spine. He pushes his thumb into the thick mess at the base of Andrew’s skull and Andrew nips closer, bites at Jesse’s chin, rolls his shoulder until he’s pressed in, legs tangling up with Jesse’s to push their hips together. Andrew never does anything by halves; he wants it all at once and once he has that, he wants more of Jesse, digging his nails into Jesse’s fingers then sliding down Jesse’s forearm between them. Jesse doesn’t realize how loudly he’s breathing until Andrew runs a soothing hand down his side, presses his mouth to Jesse’s jaw and Jesse has his eyes closed tightly. It’s unfair that Andrew can radiate unspent energy in his quick laughter and smile yet also maintains an incredible inner calm, as though he can never be truly ruffled, whereas Jesse always feels like he’s only half a dozen steps from shattering.

Jesse freezes, startled, when Andrew pushes down his sweatpants, wraps his fingers around Jesse. He pulls away from Andrew, tilts his face up to the fuzzy halo of light form the lamp because it’s too warm between them and there’s not enough air, the taste of pale ale and grease lingering in the creases of Andrew’s mouth. Andrew licks his neck, barely pausing to recoup. His fingers are warm and intimate curled around Jesse. His stomach and lower back feel tight and warm, like they’re too big for his skin and he thrusts against Andrew’s hand, grinds his teeth together. Andrew’s other hand comes up to Jesse’s face and he traces his thumbnail around the back of Jesse’s ear, presses into the hollow just behind Jesse’s jaw. When Jesse comes, the light becomes too bright and he ducks his face into the comforting dark warmth of Andrew’s neck and presses his mouth to the notch of Andrew’s collarbone.

Andrew bats Jesse’s hand away to finish himself off, goes still and stiff against Jesse. He’s still breathing into Andrew’s neck, twisting his fingers into the thick locks of Andrew’s hair. Then Andrew is teething Jesse’s lip, his jaw and chin, coaxing them fully onto the bed on top of the covers until they’re still and staring at each other again, both too lazy to flip the lights off.

“Maybe it’s like that though?” Andrew says suddenly, two high spots of ruddy color on his cheeks and eyes half-mast. “He’s faced with something so painful that he latches on to the most insignificant thing so that he can keep it together? Even though he knows it’s ridiculous?”

Jesse rolls onto his back to look at the ceiling, thinking he should be offended but is kind of pleased to serve as a locus for Andrew’s thoughts. “Like maybe he throws what were once fond memories back in Mark’s face?” Andrew makes a noise that isn’t quite total disagreement, but certainly isn’t assent either. He starts talking about things like shock and betrayal again, carrying on a mostly one-sided conversation with occasional noise of response and Jesse closes his eyes to the sound of Andrew’s voice washing over him, vaulting from one reading to the next.


End file.
